Various and Sundry: Now Everything But Photography

• The source code for Donkey Kong is now available.  One of the original coders even comments on it in the thread at the link.  Here’s some sample comments:

;;HISTORY: ;;
;;Nov ‘82 – IDS, initial coding ;;
;;Dec ‘82 – more coding, hair pulling, general cruftiness ;;
;;Jan ‘83 – schedule screaming, rampant insanity, accusations ;;
;;Feb ‘83 – semi-winnage, accompanied by cries of anguish and threats;;
;;Mar ‘83 – Lucifer announces a cooling trend

And here’s a quote from that aforementioned developer:

“I do remember that [Donkey Kong Jr.] was started in FORTH, and was an ego-driven disaster until that nonsense stopped.”

Somehow, that just shattered a bunch of naive childhood memories.

• Here’s another good reason the internet was created: so someone else could apply every Photoshop filter to one photo to see what it gives you.

• Your Flash Game for the Day: Split Words.  Given a playing board filled with word parts, match up two or three parts to form answers in the board’s theme. It’s timed.  It’s nerve-wracking .And it gets very hard very fast.

Anyone buying it today?  I’m jealous of you, if you did.

MTV was running “Rock Band 2″ ads in the bottom right corner of the screen during their afternoon programming yesterday. That’s aggressive.  Of course, “Rock Band 2″ is produced by an MTV company, so maybe they got a good ad rate. They’re also casting for a game show based on the game.

On the bright side for those of us married to “Guitar Hero,” the final track list for “World Tour” has been released.  It’s 86 songs long, with some bright spots on it. “Hotel California” strikes me as a song with some parts that would be very very difficult to play.  R.E.M.’s “The One I Love” is a cool choice.  And Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again?”  I was pretty good at that with “Donkey Konga.”  Bring it on!

At last, it is here!

One of the greatest and least appreciated games from the original NES is now available as a download on the Wii Virtual Console:

Clu Clu Land!!!

And it’s only five lousy bucks.

Here’s some video of the masterpiece in action.

Here’s a FAQ site with a complete walkthrough.

• It’ll never happen, but it’s a wild idea that I really like, as a consumer: Give away your OS.  When you buy your next Mac, you get all the upgrades to the OS for free, for life.  (This assumes, of course, that the next iteration of the OS would operate on your machine’s specs.)  It would save that every-other-year $129 tax fom Apple.  I skipped Leopard.  I’ll probably upgrade on Snow Leopard.

• Nine Amazing Bridges.

• You have 30 days before you go deaf.  What do you do?  The story came to light through Matt Nathanson’s website.  He’s opened for O.A.R. in the past and made a good record or two.

• So the Google Eatery news story earlier in the week was bogus.  (See comments.)  So let’s now turn towards Apple’s cafeteria to see what’s up there.

• Coming to the Wii: Pirates v Ninjas Dodgeball. I can picture the heads exploding across the internet at the thought of this game.  Cute screen shots at the link.

Activision Ponders Keyboard Hero | Game | Life from Wired.com

Keyboard Hero, anyone? It very well could happen, according to comments made by Guitar Hero World Tour project director Brian Bright.

I always wanted to learn the piano.  Never stuck with it past the introductory chapter in your average How To book.  Maybe this might be more fun?

• First, Steven Page gets a drug bust.  Now, Ed Robertson crashes his plane.  (Ed was piloting; he and his passengers walked away.)  It’s been a bad month for The Barenaked Ladies.

• Clu Clu Land!  Clu Clu Land!  Clu Clu Land!  I demand the Virtual Console release of it, NOW!

• The greatest Firefox plug-in ever: It removes the crap comments from under any YouTube video. The Before/After pic is not just funny, but about the most damning thing on Internet discourse ever.

• No free dinners at Google anymore. Maybe you people should go home to your families, instead!

• The “Boom Goes the Dynamite” kid is back!

• A pretty cool First Person Shooter for the Wii is coming?

The wife and I took our tour of the maternity ward at the hospital our baby will be born in less than two months from now.  Two points:

1. While in labor, gravity is your friend.  The mother should spend hours changing positions in ways that will allow the baby to naturally fall into the pelvis at the right time.

2. While in an empty room in the maternity area, the nurse pointed us to something that would make the fathers-to-be happy.  The guy next to me said, “a PlayStation?”

3. Brainstorm: Wii Bowling for pregnant woman.  All of the fun, and good for the baby, too! The natural swinging motion. The slight bend over.  The leg stretches.  What better way to bring a baby into this world than with a 200+ game of Wii Sports Bowling?

Somehow, I doubt my wife will go for that.

(I should probably save this for Pipeline as it comes close to being comics-related, but I think the video game stuff trumps that.  Besides, I’ve got plenty of stuff lined up for Pipeline next week already.)

E3 happened last week.  It’s the video game convention that’s in the midst of a transition.  What was once a giant spectacle has been toned down in the last couple of sessions to something closer to a series of press conferences aimed at the media.  It’s not consumer-focused.  It’s there for the press.

Sadly, not everyone gets that.  Some think E3 is still the E3 of old.  They think it still has glitz and glamour and should have the biggest announcements of the year.

Take, for example, Nintendo watchers.  Both those who decry the most successful gaming console on the market today as a fad, as well as its fans, have lamented Nintendo’s announcements this year at E3. It’s to be predicted from the usual throng of detractors who think “gaming” means “buying 10 first person shooters per year and spending all your spare time with them.”

But from Nintendo fans?

I can’t be the only one annoyed at all the whiners who say in one breath that they are upset with Nintendo for not announcing anything new for them, before saying in the next breath that they wanted a new Zelda, Mario, Kid Icarus, or Pikmin game.  Right?  They’re just as bad as the comic fans who want something “new” in comics when they mean they want a new “Superman” or “Spider-Man” mini-series.
The timing this year didn’t work out right for Nintendo to make blockbuster announcements.  They never promised any, really, either.  They had a few new things to talk about, including a whole room mic and an extension to the Wiimote.  They didn’t come empty handed.  Heck, they officially announced Wii Sports II, fer godness’ sakes!  It’s the most popular game the Wii has. Many posit that the game is responsible for sluggish sales on other games — many are just happy playing that one. Why buy more?

Nintendo didn’t rush anything to force an announcement they couldn’t back up. Bully for them.  When the time comes, they’ll tell us what they have ready to go next.  I’m a patient man; I can wait.  I suppose that puts me in the minority.

• Sometimes, the technicalities of rules can lead a sports team to do funny things. This 1994 soccer game takes the cake! It ends in a team scoring on itself in order to win.  Fascinating!

• Is this the look of the new MacBook Pro?

• Fans of reality TV are well aware of how aware the shows’ contestants are of the fact that they’re on reality shows.  Very meta, don’tcha think?  It also means the cliches have crept up.  Note this video of “I didn’t come here to make friends” pronouncements.   I hope someone follows this up with a video of losing contestants saying how happy they are to walk out as themselves, and not lose their souls to win.  ::sigh::

• Mike Tyson’s Punch Out — as played with Donkey Konga bongo drums.  Cool!

• Now THAT is a sandstorm! It looks like something out of “The Mummy.”

• Squirrels hide in the darnedest places.

• Is Mercedes phasing out gasoline in the next seven years?!?  Seems very quick, but I suppose it’s possible. Gotta love modern technology!

• While we’re on the topic: Solar-powered Prius. The ultimate vehicle?  Right now, they’d only power the air conditioning.  But, hey, it’s a start.

Oh no he didn’t: Microsoft man dubs Wii a novelty – Nintendo Wii Fanboy

[A Microsoft executive] compared Wii buyers to “the same people that buy a karaoke machine,” and suggested that the console was simply “something [to] break out when people come over, and it’s maybe a fun thing [...] They’re not really buying it for games, they’re just buying it as a novelty.”

It really is sad that they still don’t get it. The Wii has outsold the 360 every month save one for the last 18 months or so, and all MS can do to lick their wounds is say, “It’s a fad.”

Fads don’t last TWO Christmas seasons, coming on very strong for a third.  Sure, it’s a different type of gamer entering the market for the Wii.  That has to scare Microsoft.  They failed to broaden their market, so someone else did it for them without MS having a plan to capitalize on it.  Instead, MS seeks to marginalize the new or returning or casual gamers.

Screw you, 360.  I don’t need you.

(Now, comic fans, sub in Marvel/DC for “Microsoft” and manga for “Wii.”  Interesting.)

• The most amazing stat I’ve seen in a while: 62% of dial-up users have no interest in upgrading to a broadband connection.  In related news, 62% of horse owners want nothing to do with the internal combustion engine.

• Video of 100% score on the hardest Guitar Hero song.  Looks painful.

• Download Firefox 3 builds optimized for the Mac.

• Michael Bay’s rejected “Dark Knight” script.

New month, new movies.

And, honestly, I can’t get excited about any of them.

So, instead, I present to you this:

Rock out. Yeah, it’s mostly Aerosmith songs, but any new Guitar Hero songs are good Guitar Hero songs at this point.

• The new O.A.R. single, “Shattered,” has a music video up on MSN.  The first thing I noticed is that they used a LensBaby to make the video.  That was confirmed by their YouTube “Making Of” video.

• The complete Guitar Hero: Aerosmith track list.

• Guitar Hero: The Beatles?  Maybe.  I doubt it, but it would be cool.

• The Simpsons map for Quake III.  (YouTube video at the link.)

• The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries are coming to DVD, too!  That was an overlooked gem. Beautiful TMS animation, too.

Forget about the drums and mic. Check out the new guitar.

IGN: Guitar Hero World Tour Preview

The biggest addition to the new guitar is the touch pad located on the neck. While playing a song, this touch sensitive strip allows you to alter notes during sustains by sliding up and down the strip (giving more freedom and options than what you had before with just a whammy bar). It can also be used for tapping to play notes, particularly awesome if you want to mimic a slap bass. The real power of the touch pad comes in the music creator. We’ll get to that soon.

I tried this and it worked for me.  You can’t have played “Contra” for the original Nintendo system without having tapped this code in dozens of times. Now, you can do it in Google Reader, too!  Crazy.
‘Konami Code’ Appears in Google Reader | Game | Life from Wired.com

By typing the code, sans the NES’ occasional “Start” and “Select” additions, (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A) at the initial Google Reader screen a shrugging ninja pops up in the left-hand sidebar, as if to say … something. Honestly it’s a bit of a baffling easter egg.